text: Butyllithium is a strong base (pK ≈ -36), but it is also a powerful nucleophile and reductant, depending on the other reactants. Furthermore, in addition to being a strong nucleophile, n-BuLi binds to aprotic Lewis bases, such as ethers and tertiary amines, which partially disaggregate the clusters by binding to the lithium centers. Its use as a strong base is referred to as metalation.  Reactions are typically conducted in tetrahydrofuran and diethyl ether, which are good solvents for the resulting organolithium derivatives (see below).